


Keen

by spensierata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 06:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13335210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spensierata/pseuds/spensierata
Summary: post ep for Max. Scully and Mulder attend Pendrell's funeral.





	Keen

The funeral was a sea of red and a dreary overcast sky. His mother wailed and crushed her bones in her tight embrace. She probably mistook her for kin, her voice caught in her throat as she tried her best to sing Danny boy and the pipes that called him, as Pendrell was lowered into the Pennsylvania soil. Mulder didn’t sing, couldn’t, he claimed. He didn’t know the words. But he stood there stoic, a comforting hand at her waist.

She drives them back, her nose gushes somewhere down the interstate and he makes her pull over and switch. She scrubs her hands with sanitizer she finds in the glove compartment.

“It should have been me,” she says. She doesn’t bother turning to catch the look she knows she’s getting. She knows what he’s thinking before he says it.

“You shouldn’t say that, Scully,”

They’re so fucking clichè.

The worst part was she couldn’t bring herself to feel for Pendrell or for Max or even herself, but only for poor Mulder. He would have to attend two Irish Catholic funerals in a year, that’s a worse fate than hers. She wonders if he’ll check in on her mom after she’s gone. She’d like that. She likes him.

His hand brushes hers on her thigh, but she flinches away. She could wash them a thousand times, they would never not be red, and she does not want to stain him.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Mulder,” she says. They don’t speak again ‘til Washington.

The fog drapes over them like a chilling blanket, the light from the streetlamps float eerily like orbs. She shivers as she hastily unlocks the door, his keychain clacks against the wood. She turns to ask him if he wants coffee or something but finds her nose pressed up against his tie instead.

“Every cloud has a silver lining, Scully,” He tells her mussed airport hair. His fortune cookie crap makes her want to cry. How he can look her in the eyes and ignore the timebomb ticking away between them. How he can look to the sky with wonder, where she can only muster weariness. Scully lets him have it, nods against his chest before he lets her go, his coat swishes around his ankles as he retreats into the night. She wishes she could believe in silver linings. Clouds are nothing but vapour.


End file.
